[ray-dude]

Any update on the DAVE-AHB2 matchup?

I found it to be an outstanding match to the DAVE. Like others, it took some listening to adjust to the amp (similar experience to what I had when I first got my Mojo). After a couple days, going back to my classe 2300 felt off.

With my B&w 802d3's it felt like some particular transients were getting capped off. I switched to bridges mode (300w vs 100w) and spent several hours doing A/B testing between 100W into a single speaker vs 300W into a single speaker (SPL matched of course). When running bridged mode, any capping disappeared and the amp felt remarkably neutral and transparent

My hypothesis is that my speakers required more umph for particular sequences in particular frequency ranges where they are more challenging (the amp is strictly limited to 100W in stereo config)

I would be delighted with two mono amps in my setup. I have not yet decided whether to make the jump, but may hold off and wait for the chord digital amps. It was very very hard to return the unit I had for eval, and I may not be patient to wait That long.

I highly recommend giving it an audition in your setup. Well worth the effort.

 

[Malcyg]

@x RELIC x @Malcyg does the Mediafire link work?

Yes, that works, thank you.

Interesting review. Given the price of the Meridien, it would interesting to review a Blu II and Dave combination which still comes in at $3,000 less than the Meridien. It seems the two were so close that the Chord combi should surely be clearly ahead one would expect/hope.

I had a Chord DSX1000 prior to Dave which had Ethernet in and I would ideally have liked Dave to have had an Ethernet input but it is relatively trivial to add a mRendu or similar, so it's certainly not a potential deal breaker as the reviewer suggests.

It seems that MQA may be going the software decoding route after all, presumably given the relative resistance by hardware manufacturers and consumers alike so far. I admit that I haven't heard MQA, but I'm really not that bothered and I'm certainly not going to swap my DAC because of it. After 20 years of chasing the promises made by digital, I am finally very content with my system with Dave at the heart and I am greatly looking forward to what Blu II might add.

 

[esimms86]

Mm..bottom-line conclusion is his recommendation to just audition it????? That's it? Interesting to note that the differences between the Chord Dave and the much more expensive Meridian are nuanced, except for Meridian support for MQA (which may or may not be widely adopted).

Given that, what is interesting to note is what was left unsaid (or unwritten): that the DAVE can perform as good or nearly as good as a DAC that cost twice as much, making it the better value proposition (if you are looking for an end-game DAC).

I found the review to be intriguing and, ultimately, disappointing. JA is obviously a big fan of MQA. He has never made an attempt to hide this fact. OK, well enough. However, why compare a non-MQA DAC with an MQA one? Does he plan to do this with every DAC for the foreseeable future? Given that most DACs don't support MQA, this is, in my view, a ridiculous approach to take. I would have been much happier to see Dave compared to the best non-MQA DAC that JA knows of, even allowing for the obvious complaint about comparing a $10,000 DAC with an X thousand dollar one. For example, having read JA's glowing review of the Berkeley Audio Design Reference, I would be interested in reading a comparison between the Reference and Dave.

Otherwise, the simple fact is, for the majority of Dave owners MQA isn't even on their radar. I look forward to the day that Dave/Blu2 reviews start appearing in the audiophile press. Even more so, I look forward to the day, hopefully coming very, very soon, when Blu2 arrives on my doorstep.

 

[Silvertone4]

Yes that had JA and myself very puzzled. Just to make 100% sure it was not the unit, I got the unit back, and using the APx555 I got exactly this measurement:


Which of course is the usual perfect response.
JA put forward the view that it might be EMC within his lab being aliased down with the AP that he is using. He said that he had had some EMC issues in the past. Certainly the noise you can see is not HF, it is within the audio bandwidth. My thinking is that it is aliasing on the ADC's used within his AP; older AP's were very sensitive to this. You have no chance of measuring Dave's performance unless you use an APx555; even then, you are partially limited by the ADC's employed within the APx555.

One of the benefits of the Davina project is that we will be able to resolve these measuring issues, as my ADC topology has zero noise floor modulation, and around 15 dB lower noise than conventional high performance ADC's.

Rob

Thanks, Rob.

Did you also get a chance to look into the noisy sine wave he mentioned with 24-bit undithered data?

 

[Silvertone4]

I found the review to be intriguing and, ultimately, disappointing. JA is obviously a big fan of MQA. He has never made an attempt to hide this fact. OK, well enough. However, why compare a non-MQA DAC with an MQA one? Does he plan to do this with every DAC for the foreseeable future? Given that most DACs don't support MQA, this is, in my view, a ridiculous approach to take. I would have been much happier to see Dave compared to the best non-MQA DAC that JA knows of, even allowing for the obvious complaint about comparing a $10,000 DAC with an X thousand dollar one. For example, having read JA's glowing review of the Berkeley Audio Design Reference, I would be interested in reading a comparison between the Reference and Dave.

Otherwise, the simple fact is, for the majority of Dave owners MQA isn't even on their radar. I look forward to the day that Dave/Blu2 reviews start appearing in the audiophile press. Even more so, I look forward to the day, hopefully coming very, very soon, when Blu2 arrives on my doorstep.

This was one of the most head-scratching reviews I have seen from JA.


It was as if the underlying focus of the review was to somehow justify that the dCS and Meridian DACs were better because of MQA support. I've heard the Meridian dacs before, they sound mechanical and they lack fluidity, the DAVE smokes it hands down. And I do have a reference system to make that statement.

Then he throws the statement that since those are 5 figure DACs then obviously they have to be better, he didn't put it exactly this way but this is what he was conveying.

Very mediocre and questionable review in opinion, he was definitely impressed with the DAVE sound, but since he had to justify the other expensive DACs, he started mentioning the lack of Ethernet port and MQA support and made that a focal point of the review.

 

[raypin]

Mm...had me scratching my noggin' a little bit. Ethernet? Is that mandatory to build a reference system?

 

[Imusicman]

I'd like to hear more from owners how they are feeding music to the Dave to get the best SQ. Im using USB from my iMac and to me it sounds great but I often here reference to NAS or Steamers in the chain. Is this considered to be better? if so, why?

 

[Crgreen]

There are hundreds of ways to slice that particular cake, each with their respective advocates. USB is generally regarded as the best input to DAVE (apart from the new Blu 2 dual BNC connections). My advice is that if a connection from your iMac sounds great, stick with that, sit back and enjoy the music, and don't worry about the miriad ways you can store, transmit and control music files. You might want to add an Audioquest Jitterbug however, as they're cheap and can help reduce or eliminate RF being passed from your computer to the DAVE.

 

[EVOLVIST]

I found it to be an outstanding match to the DAVE. Like others, it took some listening to adjust to the amp (similar experience to what I had when I first got my Mojo). After a couple days, going back to my classe 2300 felt off.

With my B&w 802d3's it felt like some particular transients were getting capped off. I switched to bridges mode (300w vs 100w) and spent several hours doing A/B testing between 100W into a single speaker vs 300W into a single speaker (SPL matched of course). When running bridged mode, any capping disappeared and the amp felt remarkably neutral and transparent

My hypothesis is that my speakers required more umph for particular sequences in particular frequency ranges where they are more challenging (the amp is strictly limited to 100W in stereo config)

I would be delighted with two mono amps in my setup. I have not yet decided whether to make the jump, but may hold off and wait for the chord digital amps. It was very very hard to return the unit I had for eval, and I may not be patient to wait That long.

I highly recommend giving it an audition in your setup. Well worth the effort.

How big is you room, though? I felt for my 12x12x8 room that 100w was way enough to handle anything I thew at it.

That said, I haven't tried it with my new DAC yet.

 

[tunes]

Linn Klimax DS Digital Streamer costs about $23,000 and the DAC incorporated also up samples the digital data for better sound. How does this differ from what is done in the Dave and is it that much better? Can the DAVE serve as a DAC for streaming from TIDAL??

Trying to understand "the Blu MkII’s sophisticated WTA (Watts Transient Alignment) filtering and upscaling algorithms can output digital data at 705.6kHz (16 x CD’s 44.1kHz native resolution). When partnered with the critically acclaimed DAVE DAC/preamp, with its 705.6kHz-capable digital inputs, the Blu MkII sets a new technical benchmark for CD performance, while redefining sound quality from the medium." So still don't understand why the CD spinner exists. Why not just apply the filtering/up scaling to FLAC files and get away from CDs. Why couldn't this just become the DAVE2? Would probably be better than the Linn Klimax DS Digital Streamer and a few thousand dollars less expensive with an all on one solution. The convenience of digital files and streaming makes the CD transport an anachronism in my opinion.

 

[ray-dude]

How big is you room, though? I felt for my 12x12x8 room that 100w was way enough to handle anything I thew at it.

That said, I haven't tried it with my new DAC yet.

My room is 24x20 with a vaulted ceiling, but my experience is similar to yours. I was easily able to drive my B&W 802d3's to extremely loud levels when in 2 channel mode with the amp (100W/channel). You had to really push it to get the clipping lights to kick in. At 300W into a single speaker, I was able to push to clipping but had to cover my ears to do so. Plenty of juice at 100W to drive the 802D3's (on average)

My hypothesis (unproven) is that my speakers have a couple key frequency ranges where they are quite challenging to drive. While 100W was more than adequate across the range, my hypothesis is that the tracks that had passages that felt topped off or limited were tickling these more challenging bands at 100W. At 300W, there was plenty of headroom to deal with the transients.

The AHB2 is a remarkable amp though. I hadn't realized what quiet noise floor is until I heard this amp. Absolutely clean and FAST, and I love the size and how cool it runs. It is highly regulated to 100W though (to avoid distortion), so huge transients could get clipped. In my setup, it really was only particular passages in particular songs where I heard the (seeming) compression. The rest of the experience was so delightful that it did make me sit up and take notice though. I suspect this is one of those situations where the amp/speaker synergy is key.

To get back on topic though, the pairing with the DAVE was outstanding, esp. with the RCA outputs on the DAVE (better than the XLR), I am seriously considering getting a pair of AHB2s as bridge amps until Rob's amps are on the scene (ideally 100-150W range). I'm weighing that vs sinking the same $$ into a Blu2 or Davina, and being happy with my Classe 2300 for the next couple years.

As alway, rarified 1st world problems to have...

 

[Rob Watts]

Thanks, Rob.

Did you also get a chance to look into the noisy sine wave he mentioned with 24-bit undithered data?

Yes it was normal - no significant noise present.

 

[Deftone]

Trying to understand "the Blu MkII’s sophisticated WTA (Watts Transient Alignment) filtering and upscaling algorithms can output digital data at 705.6kHz (16 x CD’s 44.1kHz native resolution). When partnered with the critically acclaimed DAVE DAC/preamp, with its 705.6kHz-capable digital inputs, the Blu MkII sets a new technical benchmark for CD performance, while redefining sound quality from the medium." So still don't understand why the CD spinner exists. Why not just apply the filtering/up scaling to FLAC files and get away from CDs. Why couldn't this just become the DAVE2? Would probably be better than the Linn Klimax DS Digital Streamer and a few thousand dollars less expensive with an all on one solution. The convenience of digital files and streaming makes the CD transport an anachronism in my opinion.

Blu2 and Dave cant be combined in to one unit.

 

[raypin]

Mm...so, if you use the Blu II's USB input, will the unit upscale FLACs as well as when using CD tracks??? Or does it only work with CDs? Same question for Tidal and other digital source offering CD-quality audio tracks. Tia.

 

[Malcyg]

Mm...so, if you use the Blu II's USB input, will the unit upscale FLACs as well as when using CD tracks??? Or does it only work with CDs? Same question for Tidal and other digital source offering CD-quality audio tracks. Tia.

Yes, it will upscale whatever you feed into the USB and BNC inputs as well as the CD - so effectively it is a 3 source scaler. That is plenty enough for me with the bonus of allowing me to remove the CD transport that I have, so I don't need an extra shelf on the rack. In that respect, the CD player is actually a bonus.